Creepy Texas Father Wins Right To Deny His Daughters Birth Control
Ew.
On Tuesday, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Alexander Deanda, a father of three daughters with some serious control issues.
Despite the fact that as far as anyone knows none of Deanda’s daughters has ever attempted to obtain birth control, the man was so obsessed by the idea of preserving the sanctity of their hymens that he filed a lawsuit to ensure that they’d never be able to — or at least not until they turn 18. Of course, he could then go full Tallulah Bankhead in Die! Die! My Darling! which seems like a distinct possibility here.
According to the lawsuit, which challenged Secretary of Health And Human Services Xavier Becerra’s administration of Title X, Deanda “is raising his daughters according to his Christian beliefs to abstain from pre-marital sex; and that he wants to be informed if any of his children access or try to access contraceptives. He further alleged that Texas law gives him a right to consent before his children obtain contraceptives.”
That last part, unfortunately, is actually true, though framing it as a right for parents is kind of grotesque when it’s very clearly taking rights away from their children.
From the lawsuit:
Finally, he alleged that the Secretary administers Title X unlawfully by funding grantees who provide contraceptives to minors without notifying parents or obtaining parental consent. Accordingly, Deanda sought declaratory and injunctive relief on behalf of himself and a putative class, claiming that the Title X program violates (and does not preempt) Texas law and that it violates his constitutional right to direct his children’s upbringing as well as his rights under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (“RFRA”).
Because sure, nothing says “I love religious freedom” like forcing your religion on not only your daughters, who may have their own ideas once they get older, but also upon everyone else in the state, regardless of their religious beliefs — and, just to be clear, that is precisely what he is doing here and what the Fifth Circuit judges found that he should be able to do.
Next thing you know, parents will be suing their own children for violating their purity pledges.
As bad as this is, it actually could have been worse — it could have threatened the very existence of Title X.
The original judge in the case was District Court Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, a Trump appointee whom you may remember from the time he tried to undo the FDA’s approval of mifepristone. In December, Kacsmaryk held that because Title X providers are required to protect the privacy of those who use their services, “the Title X program violates the constitutional right of parents to direct the upbringing of their children.”
Because of that ruling, Texas’s Title X administrator, Every Body Texas, decided in January to start requiring all of its 156 clinics to require parental permission before prescribing birth control to a minor (at least until this ruling is reversed).
In light of the change, the appeals court, while affirming Deanda’s right to obliterate the privacy of every minor in the state of Texas in his quest to prevent his daughters from having safe sex, dismissed Kacsmaryk’s holding that Title X somehow violates Deanda’s constitutional rights.
We hold that Title X does not preempt Texas’s law. A grantee can comply with both. Moreover, Title X’s goal (encouraging family participation in teens’ receiving family planning services) is not undermined by Texas’s goal (empowering parents to consent to their teen’s receiving contraceptives). To the contrary, the two laws reinforce each other. We therefore affirm the district court’s judgment declaring that Title X does not preempt Texas’s parental consent law.
But it should, because Texas’s parental consent law is beyond horrifying. The reason we protect the privacy of children in these instances is specifically to protect them from parents like Alexander Deanda, who clearly have no problem going to drastic measures to control their children’s ability to access medical care.
Though he’s won for now, Deanda should probably be aware that while the state of Texas may now force his daughters to get his permission before getting on birth control, that doesn’t mean they’re actually going to wait until they’re married to have sex. It doesn’t even mean that they won’t have sex as teenagers. All it means is that, if they do have sex, they will be more likely to get knocked up.
He’d better get ready for that, too. As my sainted mother used to say … “It’s always the holy ones.”
PREVIOUSLY:
"I don't understand why my daughters went no contact as soon as they moved out."
I was prescribed bc pills at 16 due to issues with my cycle, but I was also quietly very pleased to have this extra protection so I wouldn't become a teen mom. My very Catholic mother was horrified, treating it like somehow I was encouraged to be sexually active just by taking it, and I was made to pay for it myself. It's infuriating and unsettling to think if we lived in TX, she could've prevented me from having access to it at all.